


Shared Hosting

by SlothBaby (crimsonherbarium)



Category: Venom (Movie 2018)
Genre: Chinese Food, Consent Event, Domestic, Established Relationship, Hanging Out, Male Pronouns for Venom Symbiote (Marvel), Mind Meld, No Smut, Other, dan continues to be a sweet and understanding guy, host sharing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-14
Updated: 2019-02-14
Packaged: 2019-10-26 10:20:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,517
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17744081
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crimsonherbarium/pseuds/SlothBaby
Summary: Dan has some lingering questions about what it's like to share your mind with an alien organism. Eddie and the symbiote are of the opinion that first-hand experience is the best way to explain.





	Shared Hosting

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Consent Event 2019!

Eddie had never expected to get close with Dan Lewis. 

Hanging out with your ex’s new boyfriend wasn’t something people usually _did_ , in his experience at least. But Dan had turned out to be a great guy, and he’d bent quite a lot of hospital rules attempting to help Eddie during and after the Life Foundation incident. He’d checked up on Eddie a few times since, and it turned out that they actually had a lot in common. 

Eventually things led to Dan coming over to Eddie’s place every week to watch the hockey game. Eddie still went to Anne’s every Saturday so the four of them could have dinner together, but he’d grown to look forward to spending time with Dan. A lot of his friends had gone missing during Drake’s recruitment rounds. He’d missed the company. 

The symbiote seemed to enjoy Dan’s visits just as much as Eddie did. Dan was polite about it, but it was obvious that he had an intense medical fascination with Venom. Eddie could feel the symbiote swelling with pride whenever Dan asked a question about them. It hadn’t escaped his notice that it was a bit vain. It enjoyed showing off for Dan, whose pleased and awestruck reactions to their abilities were definitely flattering. 

This week, Dan brought over two enormous bags of Chinese take-out, and Eddie supplied the beer and stolen cable. The game turned out to be a massive disappointment—the Rangers were losing spectacularly to the Bruins, and after the first half Eddie could hardly stand watching anymore. He buried his face in a box of orange chicken instead, wolfing it down like a starving man. 

“That’s your third box,” Dan remarked with interest, taking a swig of his beer. “You’ve probably eaten about four thousand calories just sitting here the last hour. How can this not be hurting you?”

“The symbiote digests things differently from me,” Eddie said through a mouthful of chicken, shrugging. “You’d be _really_ upset if you saw how many bags of tater tots we go through in a week.”

“Would it kill you to eat a vegetable, though?” Dan pointed at the rejected stalks of broccoli in the bottom of the carton. “Your body needs nutrients, too.”

“He doesn’t like how they taste.” 

“…Ah.” Dan appeared bemused, but accepted the answer for now. Eddie was sure he’d be getting a lecture about eating a more balanced diet later. Doctors tended to be annoying about stuff like that.

The symbiote appeared to be sated by the last of the takeout. It stretched out under Eddie’s skin, sending out a few undulating tendrils that wrapped themselves around Eddie’s forearm and intertwined with his fingers. Eddie relaxed into the contact, taking a long draught of his own beer and savoring the waves of contentment that washed through his skull. They felt comfortable around Dan. Dan was safe.

“What’s it like?” Dan asked, looking at the places the symbiote had manifested itself with interest. 

“What, having an alien up your ass? I don’t recommend it.” Eddie smirked at the spike of outrage that came from the symbiote. “It’s really hard to describe, honestly. I dunno if I can do it justice.”

“Anne said the same thing when I asked her. It’s kind of weird sometimes, that you two have this shared experience that I know nothing about. I’m trying to understand, but it’s hard from the outside.”

 **We could show him, Eddie,** the symbiote offered.

“Are you sure that’s okay?” Eddie muttered back.

**Yes. We like Dan. He is kind to us. We want to show him.**

“Won’t it hurt? Being separated like that? It hurt last time.”

**Won’t go completely. Just absorb him for a while.**

Eddie shrugged. “Okay. That’s fine with me if it’s fine with you.” 

Dan regarded Eddie with a raised eyebrow. “What are you two talking about?” 

The symbiote manifested a head between them, speaking to Dan directly. **“If you’re curious, we can show you what it’s like. Not for long—won’t take over control of your body. Won’t make you do anything you don’t want to do, we promise. Only share.”**

“Sorry if this is weird?” Eddie chimed in. “But yeah, the offer’s open, if it’s what you want.”

Dan appeared to puzzle it over for a minute,watching the fluid movement of the symbiote over Eddie’s skin. “That’s definitely not how I expected to spend my Wednesday night,” he joked. “But yes. I think I’d like that.”

Eddie shifted closer to Dan on the worn leather couch and extended a hand. “It can be a bit unpleasant at first,” he warned. “Try to relax.”

Dan nodded and took his hand. The symbiote welled up from Eddie’s arm like tar, rolling across their clasped hands and seeping into Dan’s olive skin. Dan stiffened and inhaled sharply, scrunching his eyes shut. 

“Breathe,” Eddie encouraged. “It helps.”

Eddie hadn’t shared the symbiote with another host before. It was uniquely strange to feel the symbiote moving around inside Dan’s body, searching out his brain with reaching tentacles until it found purchase and linked to his nervous system. The rapid influx of information threw him off-balance—feedback from Dan’s nerve endings, the symbiote’s pleased thrumming as it linked itself to Dan’s brain, and most surprisingly, Dan’s senses. Eddie was suddenly seeing in stereo, his brain struggling to process the dual inputs from his eyes and Dan’s. 

“I’m sorry,” he gasped out. “I wasn’t expecting it to be so—”

“It’s fine—”

“We can stop, if you want to—”

“No, this is fascinating.” Dan’s eyes were wide with awe. “Is it always like this, for you?”

“Not exactly. It’s a little different when it’s just you and the symbiote.” Eddie found himself distracted by the fact that his blinks and Dan’s weren’t synchronous. _This is weird,_ he thought to himself. _And I thought having an alien up my ass was the weirdest things were gonna get._

Dan chuckled. “I mean, he’s not _literally_ up your ass. Right now, at least.”

“You can hear my thoughts?”

“Guessing you can hear mine too?” 

Eddie could, and the experience was strange. It was like watching a video with sound lag; he could feel the words forming in Dan’s mind a second before he started talking. He reached down and pinched his own forearm.

“Ouch,” Dan said in an accusatory tone. 

“Sorry, just curious.” Eddie’s arm smarted. “Still comfortable, darling?”

**Yes, Eddie. Feels nice.**

“Oh, that’s strange,” Dan breathed. 

“You don’t know the half of it.” Eddie reached for his beer and took a swig. 

“Are you always this…hungry?” 

“It’s usually worse.” Eddie shrugged. “Guess two brains are better than one. You get used to it.”

“I can’t imagine ever getting used to this.” Dan held up his other hand, examining his fingers intently as oily tendrils crept across his skin. He squinted at his empty beer bottle on the coffee table, and a black tentacle shot out to retrieve it. 

Eddie could feel the symbiote radiating smugness as it deposited the bottle in Dan’s palm. It liked to be helpful. It thrived on this sort of attention. 

All the same, being spread out across two bodies like this was incredibly straining—for both of them. Eddie’s brain wasn’t capable of processing the onslaught of information that was being relayed to it through their neural connection with Dan. He could already feel the beginnings of a migraine coming on. 

“Listen, Dan—”

“I understand.” Of course Dan did. He had a front row seat to Eddie’s stream of consciousness right now.

“Thanks,” Eddie said in a strained voice, closing his eyes and taking a deep breath as the symbiote disentangled itself from Dan’s neurons. The darkness that came when he was no longer connected to Dan’s optic nerves was a blessing. He breathed a sigh of relief. The symbiote receded back into Eddie, just as exhausted as he was. 

“Sorry,” Dan said with a tinge of regret. “I hope that didn’t hurt you.”

“We’re fine, don’t worry. I’m just still learning the limitations here.”

“I get it now.” Dan gave his hand a squeeze and then released it. “Thanks for showing me. It means a lot.”

Eddie smiled wanly. “Anytime.”

He kept his eyes closed, leaning back on the couch with the faint noise of the hockey game still playing in the background. Dan got up and returned a moment later with a glass of water and an aspirin.

“Normally I wouldn’t recommend taking this with alcohol in your stomach,” he cautioned. “But I’m assuming damage to your liver and stomach lining is a moot point?”

The symbiote scoffed. **Can fix you, Eddie.**

“Yeah, that’s not a problem.” Eddie took the pill and winced as his too-large gulp of water worked its way down his throat. “Thanks.”

“Anytime.”

Dan settled back down on the couch beside him as if they hadn’t just shared a mental connection via an alien organism. You really had to give it to him, Eddie thought as the pounding in his temples slowly began to abate. The guy knew how to roll with the punches.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! If you enjoyed this story please consider leaving a comment, I love hearing from you!


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